However, when you back away from his 4-8 ending in 2017, his brick-by-brick plan wasn’t going that badly.

His first UT team finished 5-7 in 2013. His second went 7-6. Then came back-to-back 9-4 seasons before the entire project collapsed in 2017.

What went wrong?

Short answer: Maybe he just ran out of bricks.

Although Tennessee is done with Jones and his bricks, it shouldn’t give up on catchphrases. My advice: Just use them more sparingly.

You probably can guess where this is headed. It’s headed to another catchphrase: “team by team.”

That’s how I see new coach Jeremy Pruitt’s course as he attempts to raise UT football from the bottom of the SEC.

As sportscasters love to say when a team is trying to come back from an overwhelming deficit, “You can't get it all back at once.” And Tennessee can’t expect to overtake all the SEC East in one season.

However, I’m not suggesting the Vols should try to pass only one divisional opponent per season.

Instead, two per season would be a good way to start out, beginning with Kentucky and Vanderbilt this season. That’s hardly an insurmountable climb, though Kentucky edged UT last season and Vanderbilt has won four of its past six games against Tennessee.

Despite those results, I expect UT to finish ahead of both the Commodores and Wildcats this season. Once past them, Tennessee can set its sights on Missouri and South Carolina in 2019.

The Vols have been beaten so often by Alabama and Florida in recent years – not to mention their surprising struggles against in-state rival Vanderbilt – that their failure against Missouri and South Carolina is easily overlooked.

Missouri is 4-2 against UT since it joined the SEC. Nonetheless, the Vols have won two of the past three games in the series, and Pruitt is clearly outrecruiting Missouri coach Barry Odom.

Catching the Gamecocks might be more difficult. A series that UT once dominated has turned South Carolina’s way. South Carolina has won seven of the past 13 games in the series, and coach Will Muschamp never has lost to Tennessee – as either a South Carolina or Florida coach.

But let’s face it: Muschamp’s perfection hasn’t come against UT’s best and brightest coaches. And four of South Carolina’s last seven victories in the series have been by a total of 13 points.

A few better coaching decisions could give the Vols the upper hand in this series.

Then comes the tough part: overtaking Georgia and Florida in 2020.

Remember back in paragraph 13 when I suggested UT could surpass two SEC East opponents per year? Forget it.

Since the climb will become significantly steeper in 2020, Tennessee shouldn’t be expected to surpass both Georgia and Florida. Just Florida would do.

And based on how much better Pruitt is recruiting than first-year Florida coach Dan Mullen, maybe that’s a reasonable goal.

The Vols can worry about Georgia in 2021.

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: Twitter.com/johnadamskns.